There’s a lot going on Nissans new Navaraand the Japanese company relied on a partner Premcar to ensure the new generation ute is suitable for Australian conditions.
Premcar has already updated the current Navara and Patrol, with even more off-road capable Warrior versions available in Nissan Australia showrooms.
Now Nissan Australia has confirmed it has relied on the Australian automotive engineering specialist to test the new Navara’s suspension.
The new generation ute, which is closely related to the recently launched Mitsubishi Triton, will be unveiled on November 19, 2025 before launching in Australia in the first half of 2026.
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“In Australia and New Zealand, the ute is simply a part of life – the weekday workhorse, the weekend adventurer, even the school dropout,” Tim Davis, Nissan Australia’s senior manager of local product development and improvement, said in a teaser video for the development of the new Navara.
“So we can’t just take a model from another market and assume it will fit. It needs to be fine-tuned because the conditions we face are completely unique to this part of the world.”
Nissan said Premcar’s testing covered “the full spectrum of use cases”, including a range of off-road and on-road types and from unloaded to maximum payload capacity.
The Japanese automaker says it has been developing and evaluating cars locally for nearly four decades.
The new Triton-based Navara is likely to switch to Mitsubishi’s 150kW/470Nm 2.4-litre turbo-diesel four-cylinder engine, representing a step up in power and torque over the most powerful D23 Navara, which makes 140kW and 450Nm.
Nissan is expected to give the Navara a unique front and rear design, although the cab, doors, hood and front side panels appear to be shared with the Triton.
Given the close connection, it’s likely that Nissan will ditch the coil-spring rear suspension altogether – although it’s become much more common in recent years than when its predecessor Navara was launched.
However, sharing mechanicals with the Triton would allow the Navara to adopt Mitsubishi’s Super Select all-wheel drive system, which has a mode that allows the vehicle to drive on paved roads in all-wheel drive.
Government approval documents released last month show Nissan will continue to offer a choice of rear- or all-wheel drive, manual or automatic transmissions, and single, king and double cab configurations.
The Navara is an important vehicle for Nissan Australia and is currently the second best-selling vehicle after the X-Trail. Last year, Nissan delivered 10,063 examples, surpassing models like the Mitsubishi Triton (18,077) and Mazda BT-50 (15,164), not to mention the best-selling Toyota HiLux and Ford Ranger.
While sales increased compared to 2023, Navara sales have declined since their peak in the early 2010s – in 2012, for example, Nissan delivered 26,045 Navaras locally.
It is therefore likely that the brand wants to avoid a repeat of the suspension problems that affected the outgoing D23 Navara at the start of its run.
Introduced in 2015, the D23 switched to a coil-sprung five-link rear suspension in the all-wheel drive variants – quite unusual in a segment where leaf springs were the norm.
However, criticism of its tuning led to an update to the Series II in 2017, which brought revised front and rear shock absorbers as well as revised rear dampers, all of which were intended to improve not only ride comfort but also lateral stability.
Still not satisfied, Nissan launched an updated Series III Navara in 2018 with further changes to improve ride, handling and steering.
The following year, Nissan Australia launched its first Premcar-tuned vehicle – the Navara N-Trek Warrior. This variant was later followed by the Pro-4X Warrior and the SL Warrior, with Premcar also working over the Y62 Patrol.
Earlier this year, Premcar, Nissan Australia and Nissan South Africa announced a joint collaboration to see the Australian specialist improve the Navara Pro-4X Warriors in South Africa for the local market.
Premcar can trace its roots back to the launch of the Tickford Vehicle Engineering-enhanced Ford EL Falcon GT in 1997, followed by the 1998 TS50, TE50 and TL50 models and the 2001 Mustang, locally converted to right-hand drive by Tickford.
FPV (Ford Performance Vehicles) was then formed in a joint venture between Ford and Prodrive, which Tickford bought out, and Prodrive also worked with Mazda Australia to develop the MX-5 SP and with Toyota Australia to develop the TRD Aurion and HiLux.
After developing the supercharged 5.0-litre V8 “Miami” for FPV’s Falcon-based model range, Prodrive became Premcar in 2012 and produced a range of high-performance Falcon-based sedans in the domestic big car’s final days.
Unlike Walkinshaw, which has a similar origin story, Premcar does not overtake right-hand drive vehicles, although CEO Bernie Quinn teased earlier this year: “It’s very likely you’ll hear something from Premcar about this at some point.”
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